Names

Today I took down Fives alphabet letters that have been on the door to the basement for a year now. He didn't even notice. When I took them down, I had a thought about kids and names. I started to think how my children identify with their initial and name. Five really admires the upper case I and feels personal about it. I think giving children their own initials in the family can give them some security, confidence and independence. They find a way to relate to the letter when learning the alphabet. They admire the letter and take pride in knowing that is their letter. They learn the letters of their siblings and are eager to share their knowledge of others letters. This has been a discussion in our family many times over throughout the last few years. Your children learning letter recognition and the alphabet is a time to remember. We discuss who in our family starts with different letters. We start with immediate family, mom, dad and siblings. Then we move on to extended family and find who has letters in common with one another. Learning to write their names has been an adventure too. I noticed how Five wrote his name on the back of early letters. It was so fresh and new. Now he writes his name with confidence. Even though it is not always correct, the confidence can be seen with each letter. He changes it up frequently. Some days, he likes to write in all upper case letters. Other days, his s looks like a z. N suggested we just change the spelling for him. Some days the a's are lower case with tails on the wrong side. And every once in awhile, the c can be backwards. Even with all these flaws, I guarantee 90% of the time, he was completely confident in signing his name. Six had his fair share of issues too,but in the end I think he was thankful for only four letters. He always got the L right, but sometimes had issues with the K or E. Three is still learning. Some times her E looks more like a comb, an E with a few extra lines. She will also make a nice E that has lines extending almost to the other side of the page. If you have received letters from us, you may have seen this trade mark signature.

I am enjoying this time in my children's life. I know eventually, they will all write with complete confidence and not think twice about the letters. These early signatures are precious and will not be repeated in the years to come. I am happy they have identified with their letter and are enjoying learning so much.